Brightside - Mark Tullius

Description
Across the nation, telepaths are rounded up and sent to the beautiful mountain town of Brightside. They're told it's just like everywhere else, probably even nicer. As long as they follow the rules and don't ever think about leaving. Joe Nolan is one of the accused, a man who spent his life hearing things people left unsaid. And now he's paying for it on his hundredth day in Brightside, fighting to keep hold of his secret in a town where no thought is safe.

My Opinion
Brightside follows the story of humans who have the power of telepathy. Written from Joe's point of view it engages you in the action and Tullius does a good job of relaying the feelings and thoughts of the character. The first few chapters really grabbed my attention, throwing me into a new world while explaining certain aspects about life as a telepath clearly. It made me want to read on and the name "Thought Theives" Tullius uses to describe the gifted humans intrigued me. The plot line was original and different and did keep my interest however there were a few things that made it a struggle to read the book around about the halfway mark.

The first was that the book is written in terms of days. It jumps to random points in Joe's life while leading up to day 100. In the midst of this there are constant memories and flashbacks which although were easy to figure out and understand, for me it made the story too disjointed as it was frequently jumping from one place to another rather than following a constant flow. Some memories and thoughts also seemed to repeat themselves continually and by the halfway mark it was becoming slightly repetitive and I found it a struggle to stay focused.

The start of the book lead me into a false sense of security and turned into something I wasn't expecting. I was told it was dark fiction but I didn't realise how dark and twisted it would get. I normally like darker books but this book became too much towards the end. It slowly got darker and more graphic as it went on and I found myself skipping long sections of description as it made me cringe and feel slightly nauseated. When being asked to review this book it was the different theme and the prospect of romance that sold it to me most but the romances were not exactly romances, they were more based on a sexual side of things or Joe berating himself about previous events which became slightly annoying towards the end.

Overall this book was interesting and different but I would not recommend it to the squeamish/faint-hearted or a young audience because if the graphic content and language. Although it started well and did make me read on the graphic content did become too much towards the end and the disjointed nature of the flashbacks and days made it hard for me to focus at times.